Maintaining Healthy Bones

If there’s one thing radiologists see a lot of, it’s broken bones. With 206 of them, bones play a vital role within the human body.

Maintaining Healthy Bones

7 Jul, 2015

If there’s one thing radiologists see a lot of, it’s broken bones. With 206 of them, bones play a vital role within the human body.

Bones primarily support body structure, allowing us to stand tall and execute a range of movement. Bones protect our more vulnerable internal organs, store important minerals such as calcium, and also contain marrow which allows for blood cell production. Bones are extremely important, and help us remain active all through our lifetime. A broken bone is never fun, and while you may not be able to prevent accidents from occurring (though you can certainly minimise this risk), you can take steps today to make your bones as healthy and strong as possible.

Boost Your Bone Health

According to Healthy Bones Australia, there are 3 essential elements involved in maintaining healthy bones: exercise, calcium, and sunshine. Each factor plays an important role in strengthening your bones. With bone health knowledge under your belt, it is surprisingly easy to boost your bone health in your everyday lifestyle.

Get That Calcium

Calcium deposits are what build our bones and keep them healthy. Some calcium is needed throughout your life to keep your bones at their strongest. Older children and adolescents require the most calcium intake in their daily diet, as their bones are growing rapidly at this stage. As we age, we also need to keep tabs on our intake, as bone calcium levels begin to decrease, especially for women. After the age of 50, women may need to include more calcium in their diet, or even take a supplement. Maintaining proper levels of calcium helps to prevent osteoporosis and keeps our bones from becoming brittle and more susceptible to breakage.

What foods provide calcium?

You can easily consume your daily recommended calcium amount by eating calcium-rich foods. When most people think of calcium, they think of milk. While milk has the highest calcium content, you can get it from a wide variety of sources, including soy milk, natural yogurts, cheeses such as cheddar, mozzarella, and edam, sardines, mussels, salmon, tahini, and even many vegetables, such as bok choy, chickpeas, and watercress.

Move Your Body

Exercise is a large part of maintaining healthy bones. Exercise has an endless number of important benefits for your body, but for bones, exercise provides work for your muscles, which, in turn, aids in improving bone density. Physical exercise should be undertaken at least 4 times per week to get the maximum results. Cardiovascular activity is great for bones, but only if it is weight-bearing such as basketball or running. Resistance training, balance-focused workouts like yoga, and traditional weight lifting are also excellent sources of bone-boosting exercise. You should participate in a variety of activities and aim to do high-impact exercise frequently.

Enjoy the Sunshine

When your skin is exposed to rays of the sun, vitamin D is produced within your body, another vital element for healthy bone maintenance. Vitamin D helps your body better absorb calcium, which assists in the strengthening of your bones. It’s easy to get your recommended Vitamin D from the pleasant Australian sunshine (only about 10 minutes are required on summer days) but it’s important to limit your sun exposure to prevent sunburn and increased risk of skin cancer.

We Love Healthy Bones

With a focus on the three elements of sunshine, exercise, and calcium, you will be on track for strong and durable bone health. If you have further questions or are concerned about your bone health, you should talk with your physician. Vision XRAY offers painless Bone Density testing (DEXA) with referral from your physician. AT Vision XRAY we’d be happy to help you discover ways to boost or examine your bone health. At Vision XRAY, in addition to providing our bone densitometry, we’re happy to help you discover ways to boost or examine your bone health.

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